Let me stain your hands
by ohmysweetcarolina
Summary: Jessie & Katie - four years after high school. From Jessies perspective. The heartbreak that follows.
1. to whirl around the curves of your ears

why don't you touch me where i'm rusty? let me stain your hands.

It's been four years since our high school rendezvous, the timid meetings in the backseats of cars - making love, hiding from your boyfriend, crying at your locker.. & then it all stopped. I stopped this, I am guilty of all sin - I am bleeding the disgust you've harbored for years against us. & now I'm sitting in abandoned bar in Evanston, forgetting every reason I forced myself out of this town, this place. Your green eyes, lit in the fluorescent bourgeoisie of the past. My past. A high school memory, laughable to any outside perspective. My albatross is laid upon clichéd fifties patterned table cloth. You smiled, "remember when we snuck out to this place? I loved it here. I really did. I'm sad that it's like this now, but I guess time does more damage than it does restoration.." The ice clinked in her drink. "Are you seeing anyone, Jess.. ?"

"I am, We've been together for two years now. I met her in my Women's study class. Cliché, I know. God I know." Her emerald eyes feigned adoration.

"Tell me about her." I closed my eyes and we were back in her bedroom, the quiet discontent of a maladjusted home life - displaced love and neglect.

_ I watched as her hands danced across my chest as we lay on her bed, waiting for Tad to come over. Her boyfriend, Tad. "Katie, break up with him. Be with me. Please?" She kissed at my lips, lay her tongue on my teeth. I pressed my head against her chest, "Stop.."_

_"What do you want me to say, Jessie? Do you want me to say this is going to last forever, and that I want to tell the entire world that you're my saving grace? Do you want me to say that I'm going to throw away everything I've spent so long cementing away because of our high school relationship? I'm not that confident, I'm not that ready to tell everyone about who I am, Why can't you just accept that?" She tucked the loose strands of hair behind my ear and I felt myself whimper into her mouth. She smiled, softly. More than anything they say that you'll want to stay. This pull, your gravity - but to be a success to find love in the open world, not in the hidden confines of your bedroom I have to stop this here. I have to stop this now. I could make love to you forever, stay here hidden inside your warm grasp - but you'll leave. & you'll make love to him, cry to him, moan his name is faux ecstasy.. & cry to me, tell me of your feelings, your losses, your lofty ambitions and genius moments of absolute break down. I love you, Kathryn Singer. I absolutely adore you. I always will. But this is not what I want anymore._

_"I can't do this. I can't be your secret. I can't be with you after you've had sex with someone else. I just can't, I'm not okay with it. And I'm so sorry that I said I could be.. I want to be with you, I want to so bad. But you're breaking my heart, Katie, You're breaking my heart." and that was the end, I grabbed my coat from your closet and walked home, you didn't call. I didn't write. We didn't speak_.

Until now. In a seedy bar with bad eighties music blaring from the speakers awkwardly placed behind our heads, yelling seemed to be the only option. "Jess.. Tell me about her." She placed her hand on my shaking thigh, "I thought I broke you of that habit.. " I let her hand rest on my thigh before jutting it away from her. "I want to be in your life. Just let me in."

"I don't want to do this now, please. I don't want to rekindle any spark. It's been years, you're over it. I'm over it. We were in high school, we were young and stupid. I'm in a relationship now, with someone I love - really love. & why should this even matter cause I'm gay, and you're clearly, well not. Why are you digging up the past now?"

"This is what ex lovers do! We lament. I'm heartbroken. Give me my fucking rights as the bitter half of this relationship to lament." I swallowed my gin and tonic, I could feel the rage swell and pulse in my voice - this I was going to regret. "Oh. Like I'm not bitter that I wasted half my queer fucking high school career licking your twat after some mindless jock fucked your brains out? I'm bitter, Katie. I'm more bitter than you will _ever_ be." She leaned in and pressed her lips to mine, I pulled away but not before the taste of my youth was dribbled onto my lips.

"You're not over it. That previous statement? Not coming from someone's who over it. Jessie, Jessie.. Give me one good reason why you won't kiss me. Cause you want to. I'm a great kisser. Kiss me."

"I don't have to give you a reason, Katie. You're drunk and being ridiculous. I don't have to kiss you, I don't have to be in love with you. Not everything is up to you!" She reached her hand to my face and tucked the loose strands of my hair behind my ear. & moved her lips to my neck, her tongue trailing against it all the way. I stood up from the bar stool and stumbled towards the door. The cold air rushed against my skin. Her footsteps trailed mine, faster, faster, faster until I felt her hand clasp mine and spin me towards her.

"I'm here now. With you." She inched closer to my waist , I recoiled. "Why are you being so difficult? It wasn't this hard to get you into bed when we were younger." She flashed her signature smile and I felt my heart melt into submission. "Jess.." She whimpered and pushed her lips into mine, I felt her body pressure mine into the side of my car door. I moved my hands up and down her sides, kissed at her neck and she whispered softly into my ear, "You never were hard to convince."

I pulled away from her and rested my head atop of hers, "This is so high school.."


	2. my tongue on your teeth

The rain hit the asphalt and scattered into the cracks of the sidewalk as we fumbled messily against the side of your car door. Such cold, cold, cold hands. "Baby, believe me, I'm much better than I was in high school.. "She ran her hands up my thighs and opened the car. "This is what you really need, now isn't it?" I switched positions and forced her inside, brutally - with all intent of never stopping. _With Emily at home in bed, sleeping peacefully with sweet dreams of our future. The future I was busy tearing to shreds for a night with an ex lover. So cheap, it all seems so cheap. It's not hard to sell a future you built on convenience and insecurity_. I unbuttoned her blouse as the rain beat down on the back of the hood. My lips surrendered to the taste of a memory, as we fumbled through our inebriated mistake sex. That kind of sex that equates to the adrenaline involved in a fist fight. Punch for punch. Below the belt. Her sweat on my hands, I could feel myself lose pride in her touch. "Jessie.. Oh, Jessie.. I love you so much. Come home with me." My stomach lurched into my throat and I could feel a choke rising from despair, regret. The sheer pleasure of making a mistake. I grabbed my clothes from the car floor and dressed as quickly as I could, a barrage of questions hurled forward - "Are you seriously leaving right now?" - "It's not like you can fucking drive anywhere. Baby.. Where are you going?" Her hand reaching for mine and I pulled away, letting the slick sweat of her palms stain our goodbye. "Jess.. I love you. Don't go.." _Her barely clothed body, that ache. That ache that lives in the deepest corners of your mind, when Billie holiday comes on the radio, when my sister asks how are you, the pictures I find in the back of 11__th__ grade scrap books. You're my person, the person after the love. That first love._

I got out of the car, sick to my stomach. Her taste smeared on my lips, the longing replaced with disgust. Disgust and desire. I turned to see her eyes filling with crystalline ache - glazing over the emerald orbs of her face. "Katie, I'm so sorry. I can't.. I can't see you." _Every cliché, the regrettable sex, the walking in rain. Apartment 32. Fumbling for my keys. & seeing you asleep on the couch, clutching the phone. "Em.. Emily.." Your smile. Your beautiful, beautiful smile_. "I love you baby, I'm home." _Kissing your forehead and rushing to the bathroom, hoping to wash away the scent of my failure but only finding the comfort of the bathroom floor as I spit our future out into a faulty set of pipes._


	3. Everything you do is a masochistic act

-1_It's sad when you think of all that you've spent so long reaching for. This happiness. Being an adult. With an okay relationship, no fireworks but no tears either. I'm an adult. An adult. I remember the first time we kissed. Our first I love you. The first time we had sex. Your laughter haunts these halls. The way you say good morning when you drank too much the night before. This guilt hangs heavy on my shoulders, our kisses laced with my regret. How I'm sorry won't ever be enough. To hide this, to pretend like it never happened. This is crushing my heart. This is impossible. I was happy enough, it was good enough. & knowing I could have you Katie.. I can't go back to okay._

"Oh ace, you look hung over, very hung over." She smirked and I could sense the witty comment brewing beneath her tongue, "You have no idea how turned on I get when I see my girlfriend covered in her own vomit on the bathroom floor at five am" I stumbled out of the bedroom, dressed in the night befores garb, smelling of sweat and liquor. One knee high missing and chapped lips, the taste of dry vermouth on my tongue. My heavy foot steps clunked past her, she kissed my cheek and recoiled with a slight look of disgust.. "Ace, you smell awful. Baby, Awful. Shower. Please." A smirk danced across my lips and she laughed as I forced myself atop of her. _The sweet vanilla scent of her skin, that tough upper lip, her dedication, her strength. & in the face of all this, I cheated. I cheated. I bought her an engagement ring, a promise. Held it in my pocket, ran my fingers across it's gold plate for strength. To remind me that this is what I'm fighting for. And with that ring in my pocket, I made love to someone else. To someone half as brilliant, half as worth it. For what? For yesterdays grandeur? For what? & now I can't stop thinking about her, the feel of her fingers inside me, the way she muttered my name.. She's not you. It's not worth it. But I see the missed calls. & all I want is to run back. To kiss her. To be with her and not you._

"If you think this awful you should kiss me." She pressed her lips against mine and I lifted her body above the counter, "Take a shower with me Em'.. " She used her feet and shoved me away from her and broke our kiss putting her hand against my chest. Her fingers. Those tiny fingers. Soft but so strong. Her ring finger bare with my indecision. Cause of my cowardice. Because I'm a cheater. Because I can't commit. I pushed back, bracing her hands to her sides so she'd be unable to break away from me. "Call out of work.. You're making me crazy. In that little teacher uniform you've got on"

"Baby… I can't just do that. I'm not you. I'm sorry. I'll be home this afternoon. I promise you, then we'll have time to ourselves. Okay? I know I'm way attractive, but I think you can hold out 'till then." She laughed and grabbed her stuff, hopping off the counter and shutting the door behind her. Perfection. That beautiful, beautiful girl. Everything I've ever wanted and I can't commit.

I heard the vibration of the phone, it's labored humming. "Katie.." I answered if only to feed the self deprecation I've cradled for years now. To answer or to ignore.


End file.
